I blame fraud pair for death of stepfather, says soap star
FORMER Coronation Street star Susie Blake has accused fraudsters of causing the death of her stepfather with a building work scam.
The actress, who played Bev Unwin in the soap, said the bogus workmen conned 96-year-old Victor Platt – leaving him too scared to leave his home.
Mr Platt, a successful actor in the early days of television, became anxious and refused to eat properly after his ordeal.
The war veteran, who was partially sighted and deaf in one ear, was accosted by Martin Sweeney, 42, and Lee Murphy, 37, on Hammersmith Bridge, west London, in September last year.
Wearing hi-vis jackets, they told him they were builders and said they had heard that his home had been flooded.
They demanded his name and address, then followed him home and knocked on the door offering to carry out repairs. While Mr Platt was led outside to examine pipes, Sweeney diluted some soup that was on the stove and threw it on the ceiling.
The pensioner believed it was a leak due to his poor sight. Sweeney said he would make some calls and send someone that day to assess the damage. He pestered Mr Platt with phone calls and only stopped when Miss Blake arrived.
The 67-year-old, who also starred in a number of TV shows with Victoria Wood, said: ‘I found Victor very agitated. I could hear him talking about money with them. He passed the phone to me. I said I was his stepdaughter and they hung up.
‘Then they called back … said they were just trying to help an old man, but I told them I knew it was only soup. I knew it was a scam … He had a white stick and they knew he probably wouldn’t recognise them.’
Mr Platt – who was a rear gunner in the Second World War, and later helped design the BBC TV Centre, having studied architecture – did not hand over any money, but Miss Blake said ‘his whole attitude changed’.
‘He became listless and fearful, which was not in his nature,’ she said. ‘He lost his appetite. He used to go out every day, he was fit as a fiddle. But he became sedentary … he was now fearful of being taken for a fool.
‘I think it was the cause of him just fading away…he just gave up. He wasn’t interested in living any more.’
Mr Platt died in January after a fall at his home.
Miss Blake added: ‘This con needs to be widely publicised, so elderly vulnerable people don’t talk to strangers and never open the door if they are alone.’
Sweeney, of Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, and Murphy, of Crawley, West Sussex, were jailed – for four years and three months, and four years plus an additional 12 months, respectively – at Isleworth Crown Court, for targeting six elderly victims between July and September 2016.
Detective Constable Ross Burrell said: ‘The actions of these men were deplorable – deliberately targeting some of the most vulnerable in our society with no regard for the stress and anxiety it would cause.’